In this article, we take an in-depth look at both Amazon Prime Music and Amazon Music Unlimited to help you determine which one is right for you.

What’s the Difference Between Them?

The most notable difference between the two services, outside of price, is the number of songs available. Amazon Prime Music boasts more than 2 million songs compared to the “tens of millions” of tracks available on Amazon Music Unlimited.

For comparison, Spotify features more than 30 million tracks. So that’s a substantial difference to take notice of, especially if you’re a fan of more obscure music and artists.

Both Music Unlimited and Prime Music allow for unlimited skips and the ability to download songs to an app for offline listening. The services are also free of any advertisements.

What Does Amazon Music Unlimited Cost?

New listeners can take advantage of a 30-day free trial for Amazon Music Unlimited. After that, the most affordable plan costs $3.99/month. But don’t get too excited just yet—that plan only gives you access to the service on one Alexa-enabled device like the Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Spot.

If you’re a college or university student, there’s another way to subscribe for less: the discounted student plan costs $4.99/month and features all of the perks of a regular subscription. You will, however, need to verify enrollment in a degree-granting college or university to nab that option.

For Amazon Prime members, a regular Amazon Music Unlimited subscription costs $7.99/month or $79/year. If you’re not an Amazon Prime member, the standard price is $9.99/month.

For multiple users, there is also a family plan that costs $14.99/month for up to six shared members. Amazon Prime members have the option to pay $149/year for the family plan.

On the other hand, Amazon Prime Music is free for all Amazon Prime subscribers. Take a look at our primer to decide which one of the Amazon Prime payment options will work best for you.

If you’re already an Amazon Prime member, the biggest factor in deciding whether to pay more for Amazon Music Unlimited is whether Amazon Prime Music’s small selection of music is enough for you.

How to Listen to Amazon Prime Music/Music Unlimited

Like Amazon Prime Music, you can access Amazon Music Unlimited through a web player or downloaded app. The Amazon Music app is available for just about every platform you can imagine, from an iPhone to your car.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest downsides for users is that the web player and PC/Mac apps aren’t as polished as the clients from more well-known streaming services. It might take some work to find what you’re looking for, and you’ll need to put in a little more effort than you do with Spotify or Apple Music, but they work. Eventually.

Comparing the Music Selections

As you might expect, with tens of millions of songs available, the music selection is significantly better on Amazon Music Unlimited than it is on Amazon Prime Music.

When comparing the two options, I found many more of the classic and modern artists I enjoy listening to on Amazon Music Unlimited. While there are a lot of great choices on Amazon Prime Music, the difference between the two is pretty obvious.

But the availability of your favorite music may be different depending on your own tastes. That’s a big reason you should take advantage of the 30-day free trial for Amazon Music Unlimited before making a commitment with your wallet.

Obviously, it depends on whether you’re happy with the two million songs currently offered by Amazon Prime Music. To be fair to Amazon, that’s a huge number of songs. Whether your musical tastes are well represented, however, will depend a great deal on which genres and artists you like.

If you have wide-ranging tastes, listen to a lot of music, or just aren’t satisfied with the selection offered by Amazon Prime Music, the monthly fee to upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited is probably worth it. That’s unless you already use, and are happy with, other options like Spotify, Apple Music, or Google Play Music.

Amazon Music Unlimited is a hell-of-a good deal. Thanks a bunch, I dig it and use it all the time. The only problem I can see is for some reason every now and then some songs are grayed out which means they're gone. I do not know why this happens but overall it is the best music player around.

I just canceled my Music Unlimited subscription. There's really no need for it if you listen to what's trending with rap, rock, and whatever may be popular now. 8 buck's a month add up, and there's no discount for buying the year I know when I subscribed to google there was about a 50 dollar discount for the family plan for paying the year off at once which is cheaper than Unlimited's annual price.

Is it possible to sign up for Prime 30 day free trial.. then sign up for Music Unlimited at an annual subscription of £79.99... and then cancel the Prime subscription... leaving the user just paying £79.99 per year for the music unlimited service???

I think the recent increased cost of Prime should adequately cover more music than Prime does now. Maybe there should be an intermediate music library or just give us the full Amazon Unlimited for the higher Prime rate.

I am enjoying our Echo device. I opted to try the 3 month Unlimited Music Plan, 3 months @ .99 cents a month. I have already marked my calendar to have it removed before it rolls into 4.99 monthly fee. It's nice to have but we just Alexa to play music now and then. So we will settle for the FREE Prime Music that comes with our Amazon Prime account. Other then ending the awesome Unlimited Music feature we absolutely love the Echo Show! Even got our son in Ohio one for the video chat feature. Thanks AMAZON.

this is crazy they charge for unlimited Music , I was thinking about getting rid of my google play music, but Google is 10 times better and you can have up to 5 people on your account! and you can enjoy any song you want Greed is all i can think of!

I think it’s ridiculous that amazon makes you pay for newer music now. That fee on top of their already high “prime” fee is Almost $200/year for one person. I won’t pay it and probably won’t renew my prime membership either since that has gone way downhill too. Their “two-day prime shipping” has turned into whenever they can get it to you shipping. I’m not impressed at all.

I've been having many problems with them as well, but it seems the problem isn't them on the shipping(it's the 3rd party sellers), but you are absolutely right the need to charge for music is ridiculous.

I've had prime for years, since it first appeared probably. I've had music on my account that i liked added through prime, and day by day, songs that i've listened to through prime are gradually disappearing and becoming unlimited option only. it's bs. i already pay for them, yet that's not enough. leave prime as it's been. don't remove the songs you notice people are playing and make them unlimited. just plain greed on amazon's part. smh. shame. i love prime, but i'm not paying for another music service.

It irritates me that they're trying to charge on top of charges. The improvements this summer have been big. If they weren't so greedy, asking Prime members to pay on top of the Prime membership fee, they'd be able to compete. The app looks and feels right. The price is a problem. I already pay about $100 a year for Prime. Yeah. It's free shipping. But it ends up being way more expensive for the product itself, negating the supposed "savings"

Thank you for this. Amazon has to take a complete marketing fail on this one in that they try to sell you unlimited but never tell you *WHAT* the product is and why you should buy it. A rare misstep on Amazon's part. Hopefully they'll find a new marketing guy.

This helped a lot. I love music! I been using music unlimited for 2 months and I like. I can't go to prime music if they have less music. All the music I searched for I found it.
So I will keep music unlimited.

This is absolute BS. Even though I'm a music lover, I've seen a ton of the "additional songs" they've placed for unlimited, and they're songs I'd gotten and downloaded already on the prime music subscription. What they're doing is advertising additional songs as a lie and removing them from prime so they can make more money despite being most shoppers who use online services go to website for most anything. The least they could do, is keep the damn promise they made and actually put new songs they get the ability to put out on the plan, and leave the ones we have through prime alone. We're still essentially paying for them anyway, why make this sudden grab for money? My mom manages the music account for the Amazon music, and as myself and my brother are the main users for it, she usually lets us do what we want with it. I doubt she's going to want to pay the stupid fee just for us to get back songs Amazon should have let us keep being able to listen to since we'd already downloaded them and added it to our music library. I wouldn't mind the unlimited again, if it brought in actual additional songs, but with its flying over and stealing songs from the prime selection. It's a grab for money to keep up in popularity and keep raking in revenue. I say they need to have the songs they swiped from the prime selection for unlimited back, either that, or make them available for both. As at the rate they're going, it seems more like they're reducing their two million song choice with prime to get the tens of millions of song choices they said unlimited would have. I have songs I nabbed from prime yesterday that no longer will play because they've been moved over to unlimited and now it needs a unlimited subscription just to play a song offline I should have already owned due to prime.

Not anymore. As of this morning my standard prime music account will only play on one echo device at a time. After calling Amazon they confirmed a 'change in policy'. If you want to stream to multiple echo devices at the same time you have to have a family unlimited plan.

My unlimited plan can only stream one device lately as well. And even songs I had downloaded from amazon are gone . Mostly my “old” music like Alice cooper amazon lost songs completely. And Five finger death punch they drop a record , then bring it back in a week.

Christopher

July 15, 2017 at 3:19 am

I just cancelled my Apple music subscription. I opted for the Amazon music unlimited. Less expensive and the layout seems more intuitive

I've had unlimited for less than 24 hours and I'm satisfied so far. I enjoy Outlaw Country on Sirius so I have a lot of it in my library. Many great artists from places other than Nashville Pap Crap and pretty boys and girls. Many artists I've never heard of in the past are great. Annual Braun Brothers reunion in Challis, Idaho showcases acts. You'll never hear this stuff on radio as they play Bud Light country.

What this article doesn't state (and probably wasn't known at the time) is that Amazon has removed libraries from the Free prime music offering and made it only available in the Unlimited subscription, so those 2M songs we had at our disposal has been reduced. This is BS to me as I think that Amazon will continue to strip off the free Prime music offering to force people over to Unlimited. Thanks a lot Amazon!

We have had Amazon Prime since ~October and don't take as much advantage of it as we should. For example, I just discovered Prime Music. So far, I am very confused as to the difference between what I already have and what unlimited would offer me; that is how I found myself here. And still, I am a little confused. I have been playing around with Prime Music on my Chromebook for about 15 minutes now and there is only one or two songs, so far, I have seen that show that I need unlimited and I cannot even remember what songs that was.

It seems to me that widely popular music genres like Country and Pop (what I mainly listen to) is readily available with just that basic Prime Music. I plan on continuing to search for more to find where that edge will lie. What I was most impressed with was that Taylor Swifts 1989 album is AVAILABLE. That album isn't on Spotify or Google Play so I was very interested to see that I could add that album to my music with Prime Music.

I make my Prime membership back 5 times over with the saving in postage every year so the add-ons like photo storage Music & videos are just a bonus. I wouldn't sign up to Prime music unlimited by itself as my iTunes library is quite extensive after decades of building it up. If they gave you the option of a Prime+ membership, given that I'd still be saving money at double the price I'd certainly look to see what it offered over a regular Prime account with great interest.

I signed up for amazon unlimited family plan. With that you can add six people to the account. It's 149 a year but divided by six is 25 bucks a year per person. Definitely worth it to me. No more buying music or messing with cd's. I love amazon. Don't hate because they are making money. It's a business, of course they're in it for the money. I love my amazon and love my music. If you don't listen to a lot of music or different artists it may not be worth it. I have almost 2000 songs downloaded already and I've only had the app for a week. I recommend it!

Hell no, its a marketing scam... when I first signed up for Prime 6 years ago it was unlimited music, unlimited movies, and unlimited 2 day deliveries. They now implemented Amazon Unlimited which makes me pay more money but they are taking away prime benefits. At the end of the day its just another billion dollar companuy trying to sceme more money.

THANK YOU!!!! Y ou said it so well! I started a Prime free trial and canceled after 3 days because everything was BUY ME!!! :D O_o :P And nothing told me that back then, I needed an app as their lying ad, doesn't tell you that you need to download an app. And, the silly "Thank you for signing up to Prime" didn't tell me I needed an app either!

So I then got the app and started a new 30 day trial. I heard somewhere that they updated to umlimited music - no they didn't. Somewheres on Amazon, I read it wrong. It was an Amazon ad! Their choices = not my music. And, the Ruoska songs they offer, I already own. The Jazz - I already own. The Russian music - banned! And I do like a lot of music from all over the world! My ecletic music taste has eclectic music tastes and yet, their 2 million is basically music I already own. And, if they are counting 50 different albums all containing the same song, then they do NOT have 2 million songs on offer! They duplicate by the tens, depending on how many versions they can find! This would mean, if we average it down to 3 songs duplicated, then that is only 666,666.666 unique songs. This number even says Amazon is evil! ROFL

Well, I can get all the Jazz I want for free from a Jazz Radio Sation.
I can get all the Russian music for free from a Russian radio station.
Bukharian BB vostok - Oriental Judaic music - free!

So why might I stick with Prime? My Top Gear moved to Amazon under a new title. :P And, I can't be certain I'll ever be able to buy them in DVD. And BBC's Top Gear was pulled off of Netflix (or will be). :P I bought Britbox, as I thought that was worth it! I just hope they can upload all the old shows with the new ones.

It was so much better! Now I can't find albums that were there only 6 months ago... how do I know? Because I downloaded them to listen offline!!! Now I still have them downloaded, but can't find them on Prime music...??? Wtf?

I suppose it makes sense that Amazon would cut down their music selection to encourage users to switch to the paid program. It sucks, but it's not exactly surprising.

Barry

March 11, 2017 at 12:41 pm

It seems since the launch of Amazon Music Unlimited, a large percentage (50%) of the music I formerly had access to with my Prime membership is suddenly no longer available. It might be selection bias, but I wonder if this is phase 1 in eliminating this Prime benefit. Anyone else have a similar experience?

YES! This is what made me mad! Some of my favorite songs which were available under Prime are no longer allowed unless I upgrade to Unlimited. That's just plain greedy BS! So now I'm getting less for what I've already paid for in Prime. If they had just added additional music that wasn't previously available, I may have paid more for the Unlimited. But because they've chosen to be greedy, they've lost me as a prospective Unlimited customer. So many choices out there, I'll choose something else.

I'm really late to this conversation, but as a long time Prime member, I had songs in my play list that at first were greyed out and a message that said they were no longer available. Then, they just completely disappeared. So yes, what we originally had, was taken away. And for that reason alone, I refuse to move to Ultimate.

We currently use prime music, but we are not able to stream from more than one device at a time. We've tried using two phones with the app, and we get an error message. We tried using the web and then app, and again, error message. My question to you is with unlimited music can we stream from more than one device at a time?

To be completely honest, I still haven't been able to figure it out. The FAQ mentions being able to listen on multiple devices (https://www.amazon.com/b?node=15730321011), but it doesn't say whether that listening can be simultaneous. It does sound like some people have been able to do it, though.

K

February 17, 2017 at 5:43 pm

Your article definitely provided some clarity for me. I download and like managing my own music library on iTunes. But having a Prime Membership and a spouse who isn't as into music as I am, I installed the app for her on her phone. However, this morning we were talking about the lack of songs on there... particularly more current music. Not knowing there were two options on Amazon, I thought Amazon was just behind when it came to other competitors such as Apple, Spotify, and dare I say Tidal.

Realizing now that Amazon has an "unlimited" feature definitely clarifies that and makes more sense. I guess it was too good to be true that Prime Music would include EVERYTHING in that $99 membership. If only! That said, I wouldn't pay for Amazon Unlimited. While it is a few dollars cheaper thanks to having a Prime Membership, I believe that Apple Music (being iPhone people) is the way to go. Either that, or a free Spotify / Pandora / Google Music account where you can listen to some newer music but don't have the ability to choose when you hear it / skipping, etc. Prime Music curated playlists weren't that great or innovative and most songs would just be repeated through it multiple times.

However, I am rooting for Amazon Prime Music / Unlimited. As it is new, I think with some updates and work as it gains momentum, it can be a great app.

I'm glad this was helpful! As far as I can tell, Unlimited is mildly successful with people who are looking for a wide variety of music. The selection is good, the price is good, but it's tough to compete with more established competitors. Even the free options. There's definitely potential, though!

Unlimited Music Amazon style, will only be good IF and ONLY IF they stop being so "racist" in their options! I find it too impossible to find music that I listen too and don't already own. They are so pro-American (well, this IS the USA, afterall, where we had to fight for the rights to learn a Foreign Language outside of Spanish) that I'm not too surprised. Spotify, on the other hand, IS International, and has my music - including the rare bands. I listen to Hard rock in other language from all other the world, Klezmer, Judaica, Messianic Judaic, MIttlealter, International Folk, Metallica, Disturbed, but not Classical, Opera, and the most popular so-called "World Music". (My thinking is along the lines of what makes it world music, and our music not "world music"? When does Shufutinsky become "world music"? He is Adult Russian Pop-Folk.)

have amazon prime,prime music good enough for me.wouldn't pay for unlimited because I don't use echo that much.if I can't find song I want,no big deal.would have to use ALOT to justify paying for unlimited.love amazon tho.

Ha! That's fantastic. I haven't had the chance to see Saving Grace yet, but I've seen War of Ages a couple times, and they kill it. I would love to see Saving Grace. I don't come across fans of theirs very often, so it's always great to hear from another one!

Hi ... I have a Prime account and my wife is the second person on the account. If I was to get a Music Unlimited for Individuals plan, would I be the only one who could access it or would my wife be able to as well? Thanks for any advice.

Ok so although it seams like a good idea, Amazon may lose some customers from prime. I have prime bc for $100 a yr I get music and video and free 2 day shipping is a plus. I don't order enough on Amazon to pay for prime just for the shipping. I saw paying $100 a yr for just music is pricey so I left Spotify despite loving it. And now having to pay for Amazon prime; plus another $80 a year for more music is absurd! It should be free for prime members or atleast under $5 a month. Amazon really should have thought this through better when considering the $2 "deal" they are giving prime members.. I'm very disappointed.

Not having used that particular version of Amazon Music myself, I can't say for sure. I can't imagine that you wouldn't be able to make playlists, though; that definitely seems like a pretty standard feature for music streaming. But I'm not sure how you'd access and interface to do that.

Ok so I am a total idiot when it comes to apps and downloads and how it all works. I have Amazon music unlimited because I found the
normal prime music membership didn't have many of the older songs I wanted to listen to. I use my alexa to listen most of the time but
have explained to my daughter that she can listen to songs without being connected to a wifi. Am I correct? I m sure when I signed up that that I read you could listen to your music anywhere? I am finding everything very confusing and would love an alexa guide and a music guide etc that would explain it for dummies. Interestingly I bought my father an alexa and he just couldn't understand it so gave it back after a week so it shows there isn't enough information out there. I think that alexa should come with a manual as some people
find it easier.

To listen to music offline, you'd need to download it first. Not having a whole lot of experience with Amazon Music offline, I'm not sure how you go about doing that. On Spotify, you can save any playlist as "Available Offline," so it might be something similar to that.

I have a prime membership and I am pleased with. However, the only problem I have is when my son and want to listen at the same time. Only one device per membership is allowed to listen. Will adding this membership solve this problem? Will I be able to stream on Prime membership while my son listens on the paid unlimited. In other words, would it be two separate accounts? Thanks

I'm a prime member and an Echo owner and just signed up for the 30 trial for under the family plan. I bought Echo's for my kids this xmas and signed up for the family unlimited plan so they could better use the Echo. The unlimited music ad from Amazon states "you and up to 5 family members can stream music at the same time using your individual accounts." I plan to try it out tonight, but if this is not the case I will cancel after my 30 day trial.

Once I upgraded from Prime Music to Unlimited Music each of my 5 family members were able to listen to their own music all at the same time. This is a key difference between Prime music and unlimited Music family plan.

Dann Albright

January 5, 2017 at 4:14 pm

Yeah, the ability to stream to multiple accounts is a huge benefit. Thanks for confirming this!

Jim Robertson

January 5, 2017 at 9:07 pm

With three grown-up children living elsewhere the ideal Xmas present seemed to be a Dot for each of them and membership of Amazon Music Unlimited Family. They all seem very pleased!

Dann Albright

January 18, 2017 at 11:36 pm

That's a great Christmas gift idea!

Santos

December 3, 2016 at 3:54 pm

Amazon Music Unlimited is not good deal, i am pay Prime...No good for me, $8......naaaaa, Best Spotify

Here's my question. As a new Echo Dot user, I used Prime Music at first, and found it too limited. I decided to try the $3.99 per month Prime Unlimited which, as I understand it, is limited solely to use on my Dot. That's fine, but I can't seem to find a website or app that let's me see what is available from Unlimited on my Dot. I don't want to play it on another device, but i want to see what is available so I know what to ask Alexa to play. I would greatly appreciate any help.

I have been obsessed with, and using, the Prime music library since it was unveiled. I too, however, found that many artists and songs I was looking for were unavailable.

I just started the 30 day free trial today of the Music unlimited and am excited to see what I find.

My Amazon Prime membership pays for itself with all the shipping costs I save. So for me, the Prime music library and Prime shows and movies are just gravy. NOW ADD THE FACT THAT GOLIATH is an Amazon exclusive and was FREAKING PHENOMENAL, I consider the last several years of Prime membership have been reimbursed - but that's another post altogether.

If Music Unlimited is anything as great as I think, I will be happy to pay $8 a month for the added MILLIONS of songs.

Now, if we can get Amazon to do a decently priced added membership fee so I NEVER have to pay to rent a show or movie ever again, I think I will be really happy.

Glad you found the article useful! As I said, Music Unlimited does seem to be a really good streaming option. I'm still using Spotify because I'm on a family plan, but I would definitely consider switching if I wasn't.

It should be noted that the $3.99 plan is for use on one Echo, Tap, or Echo Dot ... at a time. It's not tied to a single device, per se. I have three Echo devices, one of which I actually placed in the car with a micro-USB charger and an aux cable to my stereo, and my iPhone as my hotspot. So, wherever I am at home, or if I'm cruising in the car, I can listen to Amazon Music Unlimited.

I'm glad that you clarified this! I have been considering the device only option in an effort to save money, and that these devices would most likely be the only place I would be using the streaming service anyway. Thank you for the clarification!

Thank you for posting this. I was under the impression that one device meant that it would only play on my echo, and that if I wanted to listen on my phone in the car that I couldn't unless i got the next tier membership. So from what you said it's one device at a time. That will work fine for me.

There is another intermediate option: Prime Music has a $2/month Storage Plan that allows a user to upload up to 250,000 of their own tracks to their Amazon account. Someone with a significant music library might be much more interested in that than in getting access to "Tens of Millions" of tracks they don't remotely care about, as is apparently the case with most of these streaming services.

I only really got interested in the Storage plan because I own an Echo and want it to be at least marginally useful, but $2/month is basically a rounding error compared to the other streaming plans and services I could choose.

That's an interesting idea. It doesn't really fit in with the "streaming" focus that a lot of people are going for, but yeah, if you have a big library, that sounds like a pretty great way to go! If I remember correctly, Apple had a similar program.

If you are going this route, you might consider that anything you BUY through Amazon is stored for free with no limits. I stopped buying music myself a couple of years ago when I couldn't figure out what was happening to the digital files and I felt like I was being ripped off. The downside to storing my own tracks on any service is the captivity that creates.

You forgot Google play music should be in the mix also, there 9.99 includes you tube red, and no ad you tube, and have never failed a music search. This will be a hard choice for me at the end of my amazon unlimited 30 day free period. . Still have 3 weeks to decide. I am a prime member of 12 years. I'm also thinking about buying an Echo. Amazon has never failed to take care of me when I've had a problem, I have not been to a a store in a long time except groceries, but thinking about using Amazon fresh, it will not stop me from going to Wegmans, it will be used to fill in from my bi-weekly visit to wegmans.

Yeah, Google Play Music is another good option. I wasn't aware that included access to YouTube Red, but I also haven't done much looking into it. It's a tough call on which one is best for any given person. If you spend a lot of time on YouTube, though, Google Play Music does sound like a pretty good idea!

Born and raised in sunny west Texas, Brent graduated from Texas Tech University with a BA in journalism. He's been writing about technology for more than 5 years and enjoys all things Apple, accessories, and security.